Approaching contemporary Christian faith in the Western academy

Our general efforts of bridging the gap between our own socio-cultural parameters in research of other faith traditions no doubt has developed its own tradition and its own ethics of interdisciplinarity. It might then be necessary to reflect on the fact that aside from phenomena such as New Age or so-called sectarian fringe groups in society, it is also important to take stock of the course taken by once dominant and normative traditions, notably the Christian churches. In many ways their practices continue to be pervasive to many formative choices in constructing a symbolic imaginary – be that consciously in affirmation or rejection, subconsciously in modi of repression, or pre-consciously, i.e. without a prior awareness that elements adopted within a socio-cultural or political symbolic have had Christian “religious” origins. This is in part what the Critical Religion project is seeking to address.

The bold declaration of a “post-Christian secular” West, as has been elaborated across various fields and disciplines, has changed the influence and public emphasis ascribed to the institution of the Church (I mean this at a conceptual level, where denominational differences merely amount to a diverging implementation of its institutional character). Heralded almost as a revolutionary struggle to destabilise the institution(s) and its (their) insidious hierarchies, secularisation ushered in an era of research in alternative forms of spirituality (itself a crucial buzz-word), that was to displace the institutional, traditional religiosity of a former age. The phrase “I’m not religious, but…”, to my mind, stems from this particular antagonism between a view of traditional Christianity as naive and ritualistic, and the emergence of a popular, deregulated “spiritual search” which aims to find a relationship to “something sacred” in life, free-from disciplinary boundaries, a peculiar form of religious diet. Our postmodern sensibilities thrive on this kind of absolved freedom that does not need to submit to the regulation of the norm, does not have to answer to the need of the many. “I’m not religious, but…” is an idiom that identifies the wish for spiritual liberation without the risk of material relationship. In other words, each to their own!, even if that means rendering personal spirituality in splendid isolation, both from society and the demands of the public, as well as ultimately from an encounter with oneself as another. ‘I positively feel, in my hideous modern way that I can’t get into touch with my mind’ (as Katherine Mansfield wrote in her Journal (ed John Middleton Murray, NY: McGraw-Hill 1964 repr., p82). There is no encounter with an o/Other, only a reflection of one’s own urge of spiritual transcendence into nothingness.

What does and what can a critical view on the Christian tradition reveal standing outside of its institutional hierarchy, if not altogether outside its disciplinary conceptions? The history connecting the two institutions, academy and church, is long, and fraught with its own struggles of independence from theology and divinity faculties. The disciplinary differentiation between, for example, theology and (what has become known as) “religious studies”, was seen to follow the trend implicit in the secularisation of the academy that would posit critical rigour and scientific validation of varying research perspectives into competition with each other. The plurality of methods in the field of religious studies amplifies the problematic (and capitalist) ideological assumptions that become apparent when researching questions of institutional power, so tangible in matters ecclesial. Whereas the former is free to identify its self-interest in the hermeneutical horizon that focalises on the church and aspects of Christian living, faith and doctrine, religious studies, in an attempt to question not only the very assumptions of what constitutes any of these elements in interaction with other socio-political and geo-economic concerns, it also has to reflect on its own validatory methods drawn from a range of fields outwith the parameters of classical theology. Thus, its perspectives often drive at a philosophy, psychology, sociology or anthropology in deconstruction of “religion”, instead of organising and constructing frameworks by which to orientate a religious ethics in view of a Christian conception of divinity.

The emphasis I put onto the ethical dimension of disciplinarity here is crucial to the way I rationalise the critical capacity and impact for research into Christian institutional life in the West at present. Ethics, with its emphasis on right relations, on the means of such relationship and the modalities of their interactions offers a sufficient model for conceptualising interdisciplinary inquiry at the level of the text and its metanarrative discourse. Not by chance did discussions on “secular theology” popularised in the works of, for example, John A. T. Robinson (Honest to God, 1963), Paul Tillich (Theology of Culture, 1964) and Dorothee Sölle (Christ the Representative, 1967) tie themselves to a discussion of the ethics of incarnation, establishing theological enquiry at the intersection between anthropology and sociology on the one hand and the political and ideological impact of the institution of doctrine on the other. Whereas philosophy of religion has paved a way for the inquiry into the role of doctrine, and much has been written within and outside of the theological faculty to consider the psychology of worship, I want to suggest that the route to situating the current state of the churches, as institutions and as instituting bodies to the life of participating believers, can be helpfully illuminated by a focus on liturgy, conceptually and practically. In its multidimensional engagement, liturgy can be understood to intersect with every aspect of Christian living, inside and outside strictly ecclesial spaces (Peter Cornehl offers an argument to this effect in Die Welt ist voll von Liturgie, Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2005). To be reading liturgy outside of a strictly theological concern, I suggest, not only allows investigation of crossing points between spiritual concern and physical embodiment, between individual participation and collective identity, and between a faithful repetition and innovative response to tradition, conceptualising liturgy also allows for a critical assessment from outside the institution that it perpetuates, and invigorates. Liturgy is an invitation to shift disciplinary emphases.

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About Kat Neumann

I’m a PhD with Religion at Stirling University, having previously graduated from Stirling with Hermeneutics (MLitt, 2010) and English and Religious Studies (BA Hons, 2009). My research interest is focussed on the interchange between literature and religion, with a particular focus on feminist criticism and the work of the late German theologian, activist, and poet Dorothee Sölle (1929-2003).

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9 thoughts on “Approaching contemporary Christian faith in the Western academy”

This digs deep but what do we find at the bottom of the excavation? Does the binary of ethics and liturgy fulfil or displace yet further into alienation that yearning for an emobodied self-awareness after which Katherine Mansfield appears to yearn?

I certainly did not intend to give the impression that liturgy and ethics were to be understood in binary opposition. On the contrary, I very strongly feel that liturgy is misunderstood where it comes under the auspices of a functional analysis that “facilitates” ethical behaviour. Liturgy, to my mind, doesn’t “point” towards ethics, liturgy is at its core ethicising. Differentiating a cognitivising ethical concern from embodied action is counter-intuitive: liturgy implicates the body in its relational set-up and, despite some ecclesial rhetoric, is precisely not set apart from its ethical connection with the world. Much of the symbolic of liturgical acts has come under fire as ethically untenable, not least in Feminist theology, I agree. But I maintain that as a frame for investigation, liturgy diversifies our perspectives and goes against the pull of normativising discourses.

Since I find your language almost impenetrable it is difficult to be sure I have correctly grasped what you are driving at. However, as far as I do understand, you seem to be saying that researchers in the field of religious studies, in their attempt to free themselves from Theology so as to become more critical, competitive and scientific, have naturally found themselves using a multitude of methods drawn from other secular disciplines. However the problem with these methods is that, by their very nature, they tend to deconstruct the subject matter under research. This means that researchers using these methods far from being enabled to identify the inherent ideological nature of this subject matter instead find themselves inadvertently imposing on the subject matter current liberal and capitalist preconceptions, which is a real bind, especially when it come to the study of ecclesiology.
If I have correctly understood you (a big if) I have to say that up to this point I find myself largely in agreement though I would want to add that there is no more justification for the way in which researchers in the field of religious/biblical studies currently regularly falsify the record by imposing on it the prevalent liberal/capitalist ideology of our day than there was in the past for the same sort of people falsifying the record by imposing on it the conservative/feudal ideology of their day.
What perplexes me, however, is your apparent conviction that a study of liturgy – which you say is an invitation to shift disciplinary emphases – can help overcome this problem since I cannot for the life of me see how ‘shifting disciplinary emphases’ can help. Indeed it seems to be just one more liberal illusion to add to a growing list. I remain convinced we will never get anywhere till we manage to isolate the ideology driving the revolutionary biblical writers who produced what we now like loosely to speak about as the Christian religion. It was certainly not conservatism, liberalism or socialism for that matter so what was it?
Andrew Parker

Thank you for the effort of reading through my blog nonetheless.
I am not trying to reaffirm a disciplinary hierarchy. The fact that theology historically had pride of place among the disciplines was dictated by a different conception of the world at large. In the course of modernisation disciplines underwent a stringent differentiation which disregards the supremacy of the theological faculty within the institution of the university. Here the call for scientific measures and objectives came to be pivotal. The point I am raising with regards to religious studies is that by not sticking to a prescribed disciplinarity, by offering an interdisciplinary approach, it undermines the “easy” and “clean-cut” separation of discourses as “theological”, “political”, “philosophical”, “ethical”… you name it. Because of its interdisciplinarity, religious studies is permanently under pressure to evaluate its own approach – and here ethical concerns are dominant as well as critiquing ideologies.
What becomes problematic then, in view of working with a subject matter that is intrinsic to a perceived socio-cultural and political make-up of both institutions and their shared history with Christianity/Christianities, is the question of institutional affiliation. Because there is much research on alternative forms of “religiosity” (still a term whose conception is founded on a Christian model), dealing with aspects of mainstream Christian worship practice has largely been left to theological disciplines. The suggestion I make here is to reflect on the ways liturgy intersects with various aspects of life, not only from a faith perspective, but from a broad cultural understanding of what faith expressions do in “culture”. As I see it, this will serve a crucial and critical function within and outwith the institutional embeddedness of the university as well as the church. Current faith practices are still largely perceived as a “private” affair (again, one of the false binaries by which we construct and order our living), which a critical conception of liturgy can help to deconstruct as well as identify deregulated faith practices that cut across institutional boundaries. In this sense, a religious studies approach serves to do some critical groundwork in evaluating and revaluating societal implications arising from so-called privatised faith-practices, without therefore going for a classic criticism of church hierarchy and political influence on the level of institutional authorities. Instead it brings the personal dimension within faith communities into stronger relief over against societal involvements.
And to briefly comment on your final question, one very much central to much of the work in critical religion here at Stirling (see for example Timothy Fitzgerald’s: The Ideology of Religious Studies, 2000): Christianity, or Christian religion(s), is never an “it”. The category of religion offers a discursive and investigative horizon to the study of Christianity. Renegotiating conceptual and other means by which to express our interrelationships to this performative reality comes part and parcel with a self-reflexive ideological critique needed in any discipline. Hopefully, to continue critical faith praxis, in criticism and observance, can bring to light that “religion”, too, is still on the way.

If you are not trying to reaffirm a disciplinary hierarchy that’s a great pity for I am! For my money the fact that historically theology had pride of place among the disciplines was not so much dictated by a different conception of the world at large. That’s a popular fallacy. It was dictated much more by the fact that, prior to the enlightenment and the rise of science in Christendom, scholars had very little political and psychological vocabulary at their disposition making it necessary for them to conduct political/ideological debate using mythological vocabulary: as theology rather than as ideology. This, of course, had one great drawback because the use of mythology was an open door to superstition for those foolish enough to take the language of the debate itself at face value. What the enlightenment did was to make it possible for the first time for people to talk about political and ideological matters in unproblematic terms, obviously a great gain. That said this advance has done nothing whatsoever to upset the very proper disciplinary hierarchy that had been established in which ideology/politics/ethics – just different words used for expressing the same reality – was seen to predominate.
It seems to me that you are kidding yourself if you believe that now liturgy offers a privileged way forward. Like the study of religious art the study of liturgy is simply a second-hand way of dealing with the fundamental issue which for Jews and Christians has always been to determine what is the ideology driving the Bible. You tell me that the ideology of religious studies is never an ‘it’ but that only tells me that you, like so many others, have yet to properly free yourself from the shackles of the mythological language.

It seems you are posing a very different argument from the one I am pursuing. I do not think that this delivers you from the hands of ideology; in my view it simply positions you differently towards the category under investigation: “religion”.

Your first point about “popular fallacy” is itself a teleologically driven interpretation, which itself therefore evokes a particular ideology. Historically, of course, superstition is a term that Protestants used of Catholics immediately after the Reformation in order to caricature Catholic belief as not being of sound doctrine. I do not see how following this up by creating a theology-ideology binary is likely to yield helpful insights.

The terms you use are no less problematic by posing theology as authoritative discourse – before or after the Enlightenment. Whilst ideology/politics/ethics etc. are often distinguished, we fool ourselves if we are thinking that they are clear cut terms. It’s certainly too simplistic to say they are just different ways of expressing the same reality; after all, does that mean certain things are non-ideological/non-political/non-ethical?

I’m not suggesting liturgy as a priviliged way forward, but I consider it worth examining because (as I said in my blog-posting): “conceptualising liturgy … allows for a critical assessment from outside the institution that it perpetuates, and invigorates”. In other words: liturgy serves as a methodological context.

Finally, I did not say that (your reply): “the ideology of religious studies is never an ‘it’” (I was referring to a booktitle!), I was making a point about the reification of Christianity in discourse; Christianity is not an ‘it’. Reifying “Christianity” (or “religion” more broadly) seems to me to be succumbing to precisely the kind of mythologising you seek to avoid.

Yes it is almost certainly the case that we are perusing different arguments. My problem, however, is that I have never really been certain I have properly understood yours! I had initially thought you were suggesting that liturgy somehow offers a privileged perspective of the ideological workings of a Christian movement or organisation but now, getting rid of all the long words, it seems all you are saying is that one can use liturgy – or presumably any other product of a Christian movement or organisation (its sermonising, art or story-telling for example) – as a second-hand way of examining the ideology driving the movement or organisation itself. If that is the case then certainly what you say is true.
Just a few points:
• I do not seek to be delivered from the hand of ideology since an ideology is a political perspective from which one views the world and one can’t make sense of anything in the world without having such a perspective.
• My suggestion that theology is just ideology using mythological terms of expression is not a teleologically driven interpretation. It is an analysis which begs verification or falsification.
• It’s not helpful to introduce a new definition of superstition into our conversation when I make it perfectly clear what I mean by the word: foolishly taking mythological language at face value (As far as I’m concerned the Protestant versus Catholic debate is beside the point).
• What you call a theological/ideological binary is of untold significance if I am right in thinking that a person’s political ideology inevitably colours all of their thinking. For it means that one can only understand a text, ancient or modern, if one is conversant with the ideological perspective of the writer. The problem for biblical scholars is that though they have identified the ideological perspective of the conservative, revisionist writers in the Bible (which is easy since all the writings from the ancient world are fundamentally conservative) they have not yet identified the ideological perspective of the revolutionary biblical writers who give the biblical writings their importance. This means that their understanding of what the biblical texts are getting at quite inevitably skewed hence their inability to make much sense of them.
• Ideology/politics/ethics are properly distinguished … whether this is clear cut depending on who is using the terms! They are all facets of the same reality which is to say the way in which the fundamental perspective from which we view the world ‘colours’ our understanding of how human power should and should not be used and so of the value (or lack of it) which we give to certain types of human behaviour. Seems obvious to me.
• Of course most things are non-ideological/non-political/non-ethical since what is ideological/political/ethical about them is the colour we impose on them as a result of our ‘chosen’ perspective.
• Much relieved to learn you were arguing against the reification of Christianity and not against the reification of Christian ideology.

Kat, Andrew: as the editor of the blog, I feel it is perhaps appropriate to step in here.
This is an interesting discussion, but my sense is that it is about to reach a stage where it won’t really go much further given the limitations of blog comment facilities. There are some fundamental differences in the ways that the two of you see core issues, and I’m not sure what more would be gained by either of you continuing at this stage. The disputes over what is and what is not ideological, cover, it seems to me, very different views, and short of sitting down over coffee and chocolate cake and talking through the presumptions underpinning them, I don’t see either of you reaching much agreement here! Kat’s original point, about the possibility/practicality/desirability of employing liturgy as a methodological tool, picking up on Cornehl (“In its multidimensional engagement, liturgy can be understood to intersect with every aspect of Christian living, inside and outside strictly ecclesial spaces…”), has become somewhat lost in the discussion, and so pending said coffee and cake, I would suggest it be left for now.

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